


Babysitting 101

by Tisaniere



Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: Fluff, Humor, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-10
Updated: 2018-04-10
Packaged: 2019-04-21 02:13:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,482
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14274705
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tisaniere/pseuds/Tisaniere
Summary: Tyler and Jamie find themselves inadvertent babysitters when Antoine Roussel and Alexander Radulov become indisposed to look after their kids. Brad Marchand helps...kind of.





	Babysitting 101

**Author's Note:**

> For the Bennguin fan fest.  
> Prompt: Bennguin with kids - that is all!
> 
> I don't know if the person with the prompt meant their own kids or any kids, but I went in this direction! I do actually know Radulov and Roussel's kids' names but felt a bit icky using them, so I've changed them. 
> 
> As with all RPF, none of the below is true to life.

“And this little piggy went _wee-wee-wee_ all the way home.”

Tyler nearly got kicked in the face by the toddler’s chunky little foot, but it was worth it to hear his shriek and giggle at his nursery rhyme and tickling. He looked across at where Jamie had Elise Roussel in her pink onesie on his knee. He was waggling a toy giraffe over her head, making little ‘bah-bah-bah’ noises. She squealed and lifted her hands to bat at it.

“Hey Stefan, ask Jamie what noise a giraffe makes,” Tyler prompted, spinning the little Radulov boy around to face the duo across the playroom. Jamie gave him a half-hearted glare.

“What noise…giraffe make?” Stefan repeated a little shyly.

Radulov had warned them that his son was teething and, well, he hadn’t been lying about the potential for drool. It meant he had his hands stuck in his mouth pretty much all the time, so Tyler had a lot of that drool currently down his sweatshirt and in his hair. The boy’s little fist was now squeezing some more into his jeans. 

“Er…I think they moo. Like a cow.”

“Show us,” Tyler teased, his tongue poking between his teeth. Jamie sighed and waggled the giraffe down at Elise, “Moooooo.”

Stefan and Tyler both laughed at him.

“Alright, Tyler, you tell us what noise a giraffe makes.’

“Giraffes don’t make noise,” supplied little Noah Roussel from where he was pretending to cook in his My First Kitchen set. Stefan jumped down off Tyler’s lap and ran over to join him. The Roussel’s playroom was filled with toys and an overstuffed couch where Tyler was slouching. Jamie had perched his ass in a tiny play chair under the window and had Rouss’s newest addition to the family laid on his knees.

In the kitchen Alexander and Antoine were cleaning up after the day’s BBQ. They could hear the clatter of plates going into the dishwasher and the pair laughing about something. Antoine’s wife was out of town and Radulov had Stefan for the week, so Tyler and Jamie had been invited over for a spot of wholesome bro-time. They’d had a long, lazy afternoon in the Dallas sunshine. Antoine had proudly handled his new BBQ, showing off its thousand and one functions and settings, all of which meant nothing to anyone else except some damn good food at the end of it. The Radulov and Roussel boys had run riot together in the garden whilst Elise giggled happily in her high chair. It was nice to catch up and with the kids and in Roussel’s comfortable, lived-in home it felt wonderfully domestic.

Tyler wasn’t sure how he and Jamie ended up in a room on their own with the kids - other than he really didn’t want to help with the washing up - but it was nice. Jamie looked ridiculously happy with a baby in his arms and the Sunday afternoon light streaming through the windows lit up his beautiful brown eyes in a way that made Tyler gooey. Plus the kids were pretty cute and seemed happy to play along with his half-remembered nursery rhymes and the silly things he used to sing to his sisters.

That was when Radulov appeared at the door with big wide eyes and said, “Er, we have to go to hospital.”

“Huh?” Jamie asked, looking up from where Elise was blowing raspberries at him.

“What happened?”

“Antoine ate something he shouldn’t.”

“I’m fine,” Antoine said, appearing behind Radulov. He didn’t look fine. He looked pale except for his eyes and lips, both of which had turned a bright red.

“What did you eat?!”

Antoine coughed uncomfortably, “I think a hazelnut.”

“What? Where were there hazelnuts? Wait, you’re allergic to hazelnuts?”

Jamie interrupted Tyler’s rather unnecessary and slightly hysterical line of questioning, “Do you not have an EpiPen or something?”

“I can’t find it. We usually keep it in the drawer in the kitchen but it’s not there. And Alexandra is not answering her phone.”

Radulov waved his keys, “I’m going to drive him to hospital.”

Tyler felt his brain stutter as well as his words, “Er…wha-what?”

“Hospital, for drugs.”

“Jesus,” Jamie hissed, “OK. You sure we can’t….”

“No, is OK. My car block everyone in and I not had too many beers. I can drive.”

“Er, ok, but-”

Antoine called across to his son in a gravelly, strangled voice, “Be good for Tyler and Jamie.” His son didn’t even look up from his intense game of whatever with Stefan. Neither child seemed particularly fussed about the adult drama going on around them, nor did Elise cooing cutely on Jamie’s lap.

“But-but…” Tyler managed to stutter out before the two fathers were rushing to the door.

“We text, let you know.”

The pair were gone before Tyler could get any more stuttering out. He turned around to see Jamie staring back at him with the same look of panic reflected in his face.

“Did we just get left alone with their kids?”

They heard the rumble of the gate shutting behind Rads’ car and then the chirping of his wheels as he hit the accelerator.

Elise started wailing.

“Oh…dammit.”

 

Ten minutes later Jamie and Tyler could not stop the two boys from their chanting of ‘dam-mit, dam-mit, dam-mit’ around the playroom.

“Their Dads are going to kill us.”

“Us? _You_ said it, Tyler.”

“Yeah but _I’m_ not going to admit to it, am I?”

The playroom looked a whole lot less cute now, with two cursing toddlers stamping around the room wearing the pans from the My First Kitchen set on their heads, and Elise now inconsolable on Jamie’s lap.

“How long do you think they’ll be?” Tyler asked, knowing there was panic in his voice he couldn’t be bothered to hide.

“I don’t know, like, a few hours maybe?”

“ _Hours_?”

“He’s got to get to the ER and then they have to give him a shot and make sure it works. It might be a while. Hey, can you…”

Jamie stood up with a now screaming Elise in his arms. It had looked so natural when she was nestled in the crook between his long legs, strong hockey thighs keeping her totally still as he played and made silly noises at her. But up in his arms he looked like he was trying to hold an octopus, unsure and practically juggling her in his big hands. He sighed in frustration and tried to find a better position to hold her, but it didn’t help that she kept throwing her head back and kicking to show her displeasure.

Tyler helped him wrangle her into her arms. He always found babies pretty easy to hold, whenever old friends from back home or teammates had plonked them in his arms, but he quickly realised that was different. Parents handed over their kids to him when they were pliant and calm, and knew how to settle them into his newbie arms easily. This was like the blind leading the blind, with Elise giving them an ear-piercing review of their fumbling.

“OK, Ok, I’ve got her,” Tyler said, after what felt like hours. She was lying along the length of his arm, her head in the crook of his elbow, and he was just about managing to keep her still with his other hand. Jamie wiped his hands nervously on his jeans.

“Shush shush shush, it’s OK, it’s ok,” Tyler tried, jigging her up and down slightly. She was bright red in the face, her little fists balled up in a rage, and seemed to be trying to lift herself up.

“Do you want to sit up a bit? Ok, wait, let me just…” Tyler angled his arms in the most uncomfortable position ever but it seemed to elevate her enough that she could see the room, and that made her a bit happier.

“It’s OK, Daddy will be home soon, don’t worry,” Tyler told her, managing to get her sat up totally in his arms with her hot little back pressed against his chest and his hands underneath her nappy. She kicked her legs out and took in a shuddering, unhappy breath, but at least she stopped crying.

“There,” Tyler said triumphantly. Jamie was grinning at him.

“Well done.”

“Oops.”

Both adults looked over at the toddlers who, in all honesty, they had kind of forgotten about. The little crafts table set up in one corner was an explosion of paper and crayons and pens - had been the whole the time. Except now on the white wall next to it was a large splat and a long dribble of red paint.

“Oh sh-er-shucks, guys, what happened?”

Little Noah said something in French that went right over both guy’s heads.

“Er, Ok, well, lets just move the paints shall we?”

Stefan and Noah went back to chatting to one another in their respective languages, sometimes dropping in a bit of English here and there- it seemed linguistic differences didn’t get in the way of playtime. Jamie went over and picked the abandoned bottles of paint off the table. He tried his best to blot out the stain on the wall with kitchen roll but it was starting to set in. He was on his knees trying to scrub at the wall when Stefan and Noah leapt onto his back in a co-ordinated attack. Jamie’s head bonked with a thud against the wall.

“Ow!” was all he could manage before two toddlers threw themselves over his shoulders and he got an elbow to the back of the head.

“Oh, ok, maybe not the best time for roughhousing guys!” Tyler tried to tell them over their delighted shrieks. He wasn’t sure if it was because they didn’t understand him, or they didn’t want to hear it, but they completely ignored him. His raised voice caused Elise to start complaining again.

“No, no, shush-shush, it’s ok, it’s alright. I’m not shouting. Let’s go find you a toy, eh?”

He left Jamie to be mauled by two toddlers and went to retrieve the giraffe she’d so loved 10 minutes before. This time she took it out of his fingers and threw it in on the floor. And started to squeal even louder.

“Ok, alright, not the giraffe. Let’s get you something else.”

He went digging one-handed in the pink toy box, assuming it was hers and not her brother’s, and gave her an array of toys. She threw each of them away and started to scream. She kicked her legs out and threw her head back and Tyler was terrified of dropping her, so he hugged her tighter to his chest with both hands and abandoned the toys.

“Do you want some food? Wait, what do we feed her?”

“She just had her lunch she can’t be hungry,” Jamie said from underneath the boys. Stefan stuck his knee in Jamie’s kidney and Tyler winced on his behalf.

“Guys, not too rough, please don’t hurt me. Do you want to do some more painting? I’ll paint with you. Ow, geez, Noah, that was my nose. Just give me a second I need to try to get this paint off.”

“Leave it, Jamie, Rouss can paint over it if he really wants. Can you help me stop her crying?”

Jamie gave up on the wall and batted away the plastic swords currently raining down on his head and torso.

“Yeah, sure, you want to take on these two ninjas? Don’t kick, Noah.”

Stefan took a flying leap off the paint table and latched onto the side of Jamie’s body, his little foot connecting right with Jamie’s groin. Jamie bent at the waist and did a bit of high pitched groaning. Tyler moved to hover next to him, his face scrunched up in sympathetic pain.

“You ok?”

“Yeah, yeah,” Jamie straightened up an inch. He’d gone very pale and after a lot of heavy breathing managed to grit out: “Please get them off me.”

Tyler ran into the hallway and put Elise down in her pram. He scooted her into the room and then began to peel the two boys off Jamie.

“We’re not playing this game anymore guys, ok, no more.”

He ended up with both of them firmly attached to him.

“My god they’re like _spiders_. Ow, _ow_ , not my hair!”

Jamie took a moment to try to walk off the kick to the balls.

“I don’t think I can have kids anymore. Which right now is fine by me.”

“Can you try to get Elise to stop crying? Boys, how about we have some ice cream?”

The two toddlers dropped like stones to the floor and made off at lighting speed in little socked feet into the hallway and the kitchen beyond.

“Tyler, don’t give them ice cream, I’m serious. They’ll get all hyper.”

“Oh what, ‘cos they’re so calm right now? I’ve said it now anyway, I’ve got to give them some.”

He pulled his phone from his pocket where it was pinging at him.

“Rouss says if we need to change Elise, her stuff is in her nursery. And they’re almost at the hospital.”

“Change her? Oh wait…yeah I think I smell something.”

Tyler groaned and gestured for Jamie to push the pram with him into the kitchen.

“Are you kidding?”

“No I, er…. _definitely_ smell something bad.”

“You ever changed a diaper before?”

Jamie shook his head. He still looked a little pale from getting hit in the balls, but he wasn’t walking funny anymore.

“Never. You?”

“I’ve been allowed to hold sleeping babies whilst supervised and that’s, like, it.”

“I wouldn’t even know what to do.”

“Google it,” Tyler suggested, shoulders deep in Rouss’s expansive freezer, “What kind of ice cream do you want boys?”

He held up two boxes, “Vanilla or caramel?”

They put their little heads together to confer, then Stefan confidently announced, “Chocolate.”

“No. Vanilla. Or caramel. That’s all there is.”

“Chocolate!” Noah insisted.

“There is no chocolate.”

“Chocolate!” both boys screamed, “Chocolate, chocolate, chocolate!”

Tyler looked over at Jamie with wide eyes and a grimace. He mouthed ‘what the hell?’ at him and slammed the fridge door shut.

“If you guys stop shouting, Tyler will mix vanilla and caramel together and you get…vanilamel. It’s really cool.”

The boys finally, _finally_ stopped chanting and decided that ‘vanilamel’ was an acceptable substitute for chocolate. Tyler scooped them what he thought an appropriate amount into two bowls and sent them off to the kid’s table in a small area off the kitchen.

“I have a headache,” Tyler said, shoving the cartons back in the fridge.

“Tyler, she really smells.” Jamie held up the phone towards Tyler, “I’ve googled how to change a diaper. There’s a YouTube video. We can leave the kids with their ice cream whilst we go upstairs, right? I mean, you can leave three year olds on their own for a bit can’t you?”

Tyler scrunched up his face.

“I don’t think so.”

Jamie sighed and threw his head back, “Fine. OK. But you’re not leaving me to do this, no way.”

“Why do I have to do it?”

“I’m not saying _you_ have to do it, I say _we_ have to do it. Watch them all for a second, I’ll go get her stuff.”

Jamie took the stairs two at a time to find the nursery whilst Tyler gently jiggled the pram in an attempt to calm the screaming baby down. He could smell the diaper situation now.

“Oh Elise that’s nasty. What do you eat to make it smell like that?”

He didn’t notice Noah coming over until he had his little dark head bent over the pram. He chatted away to his sister in French happily which seemed to calm her crying. Tyler even considered leaving them to it for a bit whilst he did his own googling on diaper changing, but then he heard the unmistakable ‘oops’ amongst all of Noah’s French.

Tyler stared down in a mix of amazement and horror at the sight of a spoon’s worth of caramel ice cream right in the middle of Elise's forehead. Noah removed the spoon from where it had been hovering over his sister, looked up at Tyler guilty, then ran back to Stefan. Elise's stunned silence went on for a few more seconds before she began to bawl.

Jamie emerged with what looked like half the nursery in his arms.

“What happened?!”

Tyler scrabbled some kitchen towel off the rack and tried his best to scoop up the ice cream.

“Is that ice cream on her head?”

Tyler glared at him, “What do you think?”

He was wiping up the last remnants of the sticky stuff off poor Elise's forehead when his phone rang. He swiped to pick up the call on instinct without looking at the screen, hoping to god it was one of these kids’ fathers.

“Hello?”

“Seggy! How are you doing?”

“Marchy?”

Brad Marchand sounded relaxed and very ‘Sunday afternoon’, like maybe he’d had a few beers and was without his kids.

“Yeah, thought we hadn’t spoken in a while and we should catch up. How’re the cowboys and rednecks in Texas? Wait, is that a baby crying?”

“Er, yeah. Look, I’ve really got to go Marchy, I’ll call you back tonight ok.”

“No-no-no, you can’t hang up on me like that. Why is there a baby screaming? And is that kids shouting?”

It was in fact kids shouting, both of them, because they wanted more ice cream. At least that was what Tyler thought they were saying - banging their bowls against the tabletop was a dead giveaway.

“Tyler, I really don’t want to do this diaper on my own.”

Brad was still in Tyler’s ear, “Is that Jamie?”

“We’re kind of babysitting.”

“Who the hell left you two in charge of their offspring?”

“We were at Rouss’s house with Rads and his son, and Antoine had some sort of allergic reaction. They’re at the hospital and we’ve got the kids.”

Brad did a full forty seconds of loud, honking laughter.

“Are you _kidding_ me?”

“No! You know how to change a diaper right? Any tips? Hey, stop laughing.”

“I’m sorry, I can’t, that’s too funny. Well it all sounds like it’s going very well at Papa Jamie and Papa Tyler’s house.”

“Shut up. We’re trying.”

“This is why you should stick to dogs, Tyler, until you’re good and ready. In fact I’d keep your legs crossed forever, kid, and make sure Jamie knows where you keep the condoms.”

“If you’re not going to be helpful, I’m hanging up.”

“OK, OK. I’ll call you via FaceTime, and I can give you diaper tips. Just please let me watch you babysit for a bit. I was going to watch a movie but our cable is out and I’m home alone. I need this.”

“If you stop laughing then yes, fine.”

Tyler hung up and propped the phone up by the fruit bowl on the kitchen island. Jamie was still holding all of the nursery items he could find in his arms and had that beaten puppy look on his face Tyler found so endearing.

“Was that Marchy?”

“He’s going to FaceTime us and help us out with the diaper stuff.”

“We can do it, I watched the YouTube video,” Jamie said sulkily.

“Yeah but he has two _actual_ kids, he can give us a play-by-play.”

Tyler accepted Marchy’s call. The two boys had given up on getting more ice cream and were running round and round the kitchen island. Brad’s face was red with laughter when he popped up on Tyler’s phone. It looked like he was reclining on his couch in the Marchand family’s den, a huge bowl of popcorn on the cushion next to him. 

“Stop laughing.”

“This is priceless. Can you record a FaceTime call? I need to record this.”

Jamie dumped everything he’d found onto the counter and caught the two boys on their next loop around.

“Oh hey, Jamie.”

Jamie gave him an awkward hello and wave, two kids swinging off his arms.

“You’ve got your hands full I see.”

“This is Stefan and Noah,” Tyler said, pointing them out individually, “And they are…energetic.”

“Hey guys,” Brad called to them. The two went silent and stared at the man on Tyler’s phone, still clinging like monkeys to Jamie’s arms.

“You boys like Uncle Tyler and Uncle Jamie as babysitters?”

“Stop scaring kids and help us out.”

“Well you’re not going to do anything with those two troublemakers around. Stick them in front of the TV or something.”

Tyler wanted to smack himself on the head. The TV, of course, the best babysitter he could think of. Tyler chivvied the two boys back into the playroom where there was a TV set up with a DVD player. After a few rounds of disagreements the two boys settled on Moana.

Tyler went back into the kitchen to find Jamie balancing Elise in his arms and Brad giving them a shit-eating grin through his phone screen.

“Now this is adorable. Wait, how do I screenshot on this phone? You and Jamie and a baby makes three. Priceless.”

“I’m hanging up.”

“No, no, no, I’m trying to help! The kids got a movie or something?”

“Yeah they’re watching Moana.”

“Ok, they won’t be moving if there’s a TV on. You need a flat surface for her then, like a changing table.”

“There’s one in the nursery upstairs, but we don’t want to leave those two alone downstairs if we can help it.”

“Yeah, good call. I can only imagine the pounding you’d get from Roussel and Radulov if you damage their kids.”

In the end the pair settled for the dining room table. It took them what seemed like forever just to unpop Elise's complicated onesie. Poppers are a pain in the ass, they all agreed.

Elise screamed in frustration at the idiots trying to change her and everyone winced.

“Oof, she’s got a set of lungs on her.”

Jamie clamped his mouth shut at the smell of the diaper, “Can we just do this quickly, please, ‘cos this is really gross.”

“Yeah I am very glad that I can’t see or smell anything from here. I’ve got enough with my little one’s diapers.”

“Why do babies stink so much?”

“I think that’s why they look so cute. Otherwise no-one would want to bother with the changing.”

With Brad’s guidance they managed to get Elise's dirty diaper off, understand half of what the baby changing bottles and packets were for from the nursery, and put a new one on, although fastening it proved tricky. There was an argument about how to unstick the tabs, where they should go, how tight they should be, and they were definitely wonky, but she was finally clean and changed. She still didn’t seem very happy.

“Why is she still crying?”

“Well she just had two idiots take the longest I think I’ve ever seen to change her diaper.”

“It’s OK, it’s ok,” Tyler shushed her, abandoning the stupid poppers on her onesie and lifting her gently into her arms, “It’s alright, we’re sorry.”

He managed to get her settled upright in his arms, her warm head resting against his collarbone. She hiccuped wetly into his t-shirt, her little fists finding purchase in the material and clinging on. Her crying slowed to a soft murmur. Tyler bounced her a little, trying out the new position, and her complaining drifted away into a a happy little gurgle.

Tyler looked up to see that Jamie was beaming at him, the same way he did when Tyler scored a goal. The sun was coming through the dining room windows and Jamie glowed happily in the evening light.

A mechanical camera-click sound cut through the moment completely.

“Marchy did you just take a screenshot?”

“Absolutely not. Anyway, I’m gonna leave you to it, because this is disgustingly domestic and not as fun. Talk to you later, Tyler. And remember boys, this is why we always use protection.”

Jamie held up his middle finger to the screen whilst Brad disconnected the call.

“That was…ok. We did it. We changed a diaper. She stopped crying.”

Jamie lifted a hand and stroked a thumb down Tyler’s where it was spread across Elise's back.

“Your hand’s almost bigger than her,” he said, out of nowhere. It made Tyler laugh. He gave Jamie a kiss.

“You big sap. Come on, let’s go watch the other two.”

“What about all this diaper stuff?”

“Rouss can deal with it when he gets home. He owes us big time.”

* * *

 

Alex and Antoine came home looking weary. They found their babysitters in the playroom. Elise was batting away at her giraffe on Tyler’s knee and the boys were watching Frozen with their mouths open vacantly. All four of them were spread out on the couch together and Stefan’s little head was bobbing as he fought off sleep.

“How are you doing?” Jamie asked once he spotted them.

“My ass hurts,” Rouss groused, “They gave me a shot in my ass. Why my ass?”

“Who could say no to that ass?” Tyler chirped.

“So funny, Tyler. Anyway how was it? Were they ok?”

“Er, it was…fun. But fine. Everyone’s still alive.”

“We changed a diaper,” Jamie added proudly, like a kid showing off his new certificate.

“Shit, I’m sorry. I thought when we set off she might need one soon but I hoped not. You manage?”

“We figured it out.”

The two other adults joined them on the couch and they all finished watching Frozen. As the credits rolled Radulov scooped up his son and packed him off into the car. They all said their goodbyes and promised to do a BBQ together again, ideally without a trip to the ER next time. Tyler and Jamie gathered their stuff and headed off too, leaving the Roussels to get back to their weekend.

Roussel could only roll his eyes at how cuddly his two teammates suddenly were.

“Honestly, three hours left with some kids and you’re baby crazy.”

“Shut up, no we’re not,” Tyler said, putting some space between him and Jamie. His hand still found its way into Jamie’s though, automatically, “Anyway, thanks for having us Rouss. We’ll see you tomorrow.”

“No, thank you guys for looking after them. We couldn’t have taken two toddlers and a baby to the hospital. You did good.”

“Yeah we did,” Tyler crooned goofily and gave Jamie a kiss.

“Ugh, gross, get off my property. See you.”

Rouss lifted Elise's little arm and had her wave at them too as they backed out of his driveway. Elise bleated something up at him.

“I know, I know. But I didn’t have the heart to tell them they’d put your nappy on backwards. Come on, let’s go sort it out.”

 


End file.
